Kelly Broshears was one of seven Lawrence High seniors who presented original behavioral science research at the 25th annual Association for Psychological Science convention in Manhattan in May. Broshears and her peers were featured prominently in a Herald article, which is pinned to the far right of the wall’s third bulletin board. “I always wanted to be on it, and then I did,” said the freshman at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island, who plans to major in early education.
Before Dr. Whitney Bowe appeared on television as a leading dermatology expert, she was a 1997 Westinghouse finalist in her senior year at Lawrence. “Getting an award or press clipping posted on the back wall of Room 329 was always an honor,” Bowe said. “Standing out among a room full of high-flying overachievers was a pretty special event. Doing something important enough to make Mr. Sullivan proud was even better. What I really liked was having my accomplishments displayed in a room where I produced it, not in the main lobby. That made it more personal.”
When in Sullivan’s room, Lauren Tonetti recalled, she was drawn to the clippings. “To me, Mr. Sullivan’s wall represents a vibrant and exciting community of forward and independent thinkers,” said Tonetti, who was a 2007 Intel semifinalist, the same year she graduated from Lawrence. “Seeing the achievements of my peers was an inspiration for me to start my own Intel project. I knew that if they could do it, so could I.”
Rene Alpert is working toward a dual degree in law and social work at Washington University, having graduated from Skidmore College in May — and from Lawrence High in 2011, where she, too, read about her honored predecessors in Room 329. “It represented a timeline of all prior students, and you knew that if you made the wall, you would be added to this infinite timeline for other students to see,” said Alpert, who, along with two other seniors, presented projects at the American Psychological Association. “There’s no trophy case in the high school for research kids, but this wall was the equivalent for us.”